Police Brutality Often Begins At Home

March 29, 1991|By David Jackson.

When Phillip Murphy had a rotten day, he drank and beat his wife, Roberta.

``She would call the police and they`d come to our house, but they never once set eyes on my mother,`` says the Murphys` daughter, Susan Milano-Murphy. That is because Phillip Murphy was himself a Chicago police officer.

``He`d flash his badge, and they`d joke with him for a while and then they`d go away,`` the daughter recalls.

Chicago Police Department officials estimate that they open 200 to 300 internal investigations annually into charges that an officer has beaten his wife. The cases represent a little-noticed dimension of police brutality, an issue recently inflamed by the brutal beating of a man by Los Angeles police. Though the domestic abuse cases are often the least public from the department`s brutality file, they may give ominous warnings of an officer`s habits on the streets. According to some officials, an officer who is violent at home is often abusive on the job.

``It is an inescapable conclusion that if an officer is abusing his family, he is engaging in acts of brutality and excessive force on the streets,`` asserts Raymond Risley, assistant deputy superintendent in charge of the police internal affairs division.

Because of the extraordinary pressures of their jobs, experts say, police officers tend to be more prone than average citizens to alcoholism, suicide, divorce-and domestic violence.

``I have yet to see concrete research on this, but it`s my impression that domestic violence is far more prevalent in police families than non-police families,`` says Lillie Alexis, vice president of PSI Services, a counseling service that works with police families among others.

``When he comes home, he is still the sergeant, the patrolman, the commanding officer. It is hard for him to put aside that role.``

Attorneys for battered police wives contend that the problem may be larger than officials acknowledge because domestic violence cases in police homes tend to be underreported.

``When the police come, they are much less likely to do what the law mandates-to write a report, take her to the hospital, charge him or advise her of her legal options,`` says Denice Markham, a staff attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation.

That charge was echoed in a federal lawsuit filed last year by attorney Jan Susler, who alleged that ``Chicago police officers have for many years maintained a custom and practice of not disciplining officers for acts of physical brutality against their spouses.``

Susler brought the suit on behalf of a woman who says that she was beaten repeatedly by her police husband during their marriage and that the Police Department did not properly act on her complaints. The case is pending.

``The police do come, but their response is to totally invalidate her cries for help,`` says Jeri Linas, executive director of Rainbow House, a Chicago shelter for battered women.

In Roberta Murphy`s case, the results were fatal. In January of 1989, after 28 years of marriage, Phillip shot her in the head with his service revolver, covered her face with a dish towel and then killed himself.

It was the second such murder-suicide in a Chicago police family in four months, and one of several such cases in recent years.

Police officials say the department is awakening to its domestic violence problem and has begun to make concrete policy changes.

Last month, the Coalition of Law Enforcement Officers, an organization of black female Chicago police officers, sponsored a workshop for other officers on domestic violence in the police home.

Gayle Shines, the department`s director of the office of professional standards who took office a year ago, has also initiated a series of lectures on domestic violence in the police home in order to educate her investigators. And in the last 18 months, according to law enforcement sources, five officers have been suspended from the force after domestic violence incidents. ``Making this a public issue has had a very positive effect,`` says Risley of internal affairs.

Shines would supply figures only for the period from December through March. During that time, she said, her office investigated 34 complaints of domestic violence by officers.

To some counselors for battered women, the department`s claim of progress has been inadequate.

``I have found (the department`s response) to be very discouraging,``

says Leslie Landis, executive director of Life Span, a suburban battered women`s counseling and legal advocacy provider. ``In one instance, I went with a woman to complain not only about the abuse, but about the response of the police officers when she called for help. (They) said they could not substantiate the allegations because it was the wife`s word against the police officer`s.``

In a typical case, ``she says he beat her, he says he didn`t,`` explains Margaret Luft of Uptown Center Hull House, which runs a service agency for battered women.

Attorneys and women`s advocates say that most of the time, if the battered police wife calls 911, she declines to file formal charges. Some police wives say they fear filing battery charges that could jeopardize their husbands` careers.